A federal judge has refused to throw out most of the proposed class action brought against Suno by country artist Tony Justice.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV denied the AI music company’s motion to dismiss on two of the three counts it challenged, in an order issued on August 20 in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Only one count fell: a claim under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, which the plaintiffs told the court they had cited by mistake.
The case proceeds on its three remaining counts, including the two Suno had tried to strike – that its outputs infringe the plaintiffs’ copyrights as unauthorized derivative works, and that it circumvented YouTube‘s rolling cipher to obtain training data.
Justice and his co-plaintiffs are independent recording artists and artist-owned entities that hold copyrights to song compositions and recordings.
They accuse Suno of downloading their songs from YouTube, copying them to train its model, and generating music that reproduces protected elements of their work.
Suno moved to dismiss Counts 2, 3, and 4 under Rule 12(b)(6). Count 1, a reproduction claim under Section 106(1) of the Copyright Act, went unchallenged.
On Count 2, the derivative-works claim under Section 106(2), Suno argued the plaintiffs had not plausibly pleaded the existence of outputs “substantially similar” to their songs – and that the complaint had to identify the specific infringing works to survive.
“However, there is no categorical requirement that a plaintiff must produce the derivative work at the motion to dismiss stage,” Saylor wrote.
The amended complaint does not identify a single Suno output that allegedly infringes the plaintiffs’ own songs.
It instead supplies roughly 100 examples of outputs that replicate or resemble songs owned by other copyright holders, and alleges that “Suno intentionally structured its AI model to generate AI Music designed to mirror the very songs it trained on.”
The complaint also points to remarks by Suno‘s CEO “that Suno’s model already has the ability to produce outputs that replicate real artists’ vocals and songs,” according to the order.
That was enough at this stage, Saylor found.
“It is a plausible inference that Suno’s model has likewise created outputs that are substantially similar to plaintiffs’ works,” Saylor wrote. “Whether plaintiffs can show such outputs after full discovery is a question for another day.”
“It is a plausible inference that Suno’s model has likewise created outputs that are substantially similar to plaintiffs’ works. Whether plaintiffs can show such outputs after full discovery is a question for another day.”
F. Dennis Saylor IV, US District Judge
Suno had further argued that, because its tool is publicly available, the plaintiffs could use it themselves to hunt for infringing outputs.
“But whether plaintiffs can now use the AI tool to generate infringing outputs is a separate issue from whether the AI tool has ever been used by Suno to generate infringing outputs,” the judge wrote in a footnote.
Count 3 concerns Section 1201(a)(1) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bars circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work.
The plaintiffs allege that YouTube uses a “rolling cipher” to impede external access to its videos, and that Suno used a “stream-ripping” tool to get around it.
Saylor pointed to his own ruling two days earlier in the major labels’ parallel case before the same court, UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Suno, Inc., which found the same allegations plausibly stated a claim.
Determining whether Suno actually circumvented such a measure “will require a developed factual record,” the judge wrote in that order, and “those issues must be resolved at a later day.”
Count 4 was brought under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act.
In their opposition, the plaintiffs said the citation to the statute was “inadvertent,” and that they had meant to plead a Tennessee common-law unfair competition claim instead. They did not move to amend.
“An opposition to a motion to dismiss is not a proper vehicle by which a plaintiff may seek to amend a complaint,” Saylor wrote.
Because the plaintiffs did not address Suno‘s grounds for dismissal – copyright preemption and the pleading standard under Rule 9(b) – the court held they had waived any objection to the count being dismissed.
Justice, a full-time truck driver whose song Last of the Cowboys has been streamed more than 8 million times on music platforms such as Spotify, filed the case in June 2025, alongside a companion suit against Udio in New York.
The plaintiffs are named as Anthony Justice, his label 5th Wheel Records, and My Heartland Publishing.
The complaints argued that independent artists had been shut out of the litigation the major record companies brought against Suno and Udio a year earlier.
“Rather than simply license these copyrighted songs like every other tech-based business does, Suno/Udio elected to simply steal the songs and generate AI-soundalike music at virtually no cost to Suno/Udio,” the original complaint stated.
The proposed class covers independent artists, songwriters, and producers whose works appeared on streaming services since January 1, 2021.
The suits seek permanent injunctions plus damages of up to USD $150,000 per infringed work.
In June 2026, Hagens Berman – the firm behind a tobacco settlement it values at USD $260 billion – joined Delgado Entertainment Law on both cases.
UMG and Sony Music remain plaintiffs in the RIAA-coordinated case filed in Boston in June 2024.
Warner Music Group settled in November 2025 and licensed Suno. The deal also saw Suno acquire Warner‘s concert-discovery platform, Songkick.
On July 31, the Munich Regional Court ruled against Suno in a case brought by German collecting society GEMA, ordering it to disclose revenue and pay damages yet to be set. Suno says it is evaluating all available options, including an appeal, and the first-instance judgment is not final.
Denmark’s Koda has a separate case in Copenhagen.
A second group of independent artists, led by songwriter David Woulard, filed class actions against both companies in October 2025 in the Northern District of Illinois, adding claims under Illinois‘ Biometric Information Privacy Act and Right of Publicity Act.
On August 17, Round Hill Music sued Suno in the Northern District of California, seeking damages it says could approach or exceed USD $1 billion.
The litigation has not slowed Suno down.
Suno raised over USD $400 million in a Series D round in June 2026 that valued it at USD $5.4 billion post-money.
It said in February that it had passed 2 million paid subscribers and USD $300 million in annual recurring revenue, and has said more than 100 million people have used the platform.
“Soon, we’ll introduce a new generation of Suno models, developed in partnership with the music industry,” the company wrote on August 10. “When the new models launch, all prior models will be retired.”
On August 12, it struck a licensing deal with BMG covering the music firm’s recorded music and publishing repertoire, opt-in for artists and songwriters, and settling Suno‘s prior use of that catalog. BMG never sued Suno.
In an eight-day stretch to August 13, Suno also announced download caps, watermarking and fingerprinting, a rebuilt production suite, and a vinyl service.
From September 3, a song sitting in a paying subscriber’s library cannot be released, sold, or licensed until a download has been spent on it.
MBW has contacted Suno for comment.Music Business Worldwide
